The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia

Facing the Holocaust

Livia Rothkirchen

Publication Year: 2006

“We were both small nations whose existence could never be taken for granted,” Vaclav Havel said of the Czechs and the Jews of Israel in 1990, and indeed, the complex and intimate link between the fortunes of these two peoples is unique in European history. This book, by one of the world’s leading authorities on the history of Czech and Slovak Jewry during the Nazi period, is the first to thoroughly document this singular relationship and to trace its impact, both practical and profound, on the fate of the Jews of Bohemia and Moravia during the Holocaust.

Livia Rothkirchen provides a detailed and comprehensive history of how Nazi rule in the Czech lands was shaped as much by local culture and circumstances as by military policy. The extraordinary nature of the Czech Jews’ experience emerges clearly in chapters on the role of the Jewish minority in Czech life; the crises of the Munich agreement and the German occupation, the reaction of the local population to the persecution of the Jews, the policies of the London-based government in exile, the question of Jewish resistance, and the special case of the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto. The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia is based on a wealth of primary documents, many uncovered only after the 1989 November Revolution. With an epilogue on the post-1945 period, this richly woven historical narrative supplies information essential to an understanding of the history of the Jews in Europe.

Contents

Preface

For several decades now I have been pursuing extensive research on Nazi policy
in East-Central Europe, perusing the mammoth accumulation of records, documentation,
and literature: the degradation of humanity and the machinery of
genocide. I came to realize that Germany’s system of ruling in conquered
Europe varied from country to country, as did the persecution...

Acknowledgments

When I embarked on this project the Iron Curtain still hung over Eastern
Europe, and contacts with colleagues and friends in Czechoslovakia were limited
and strained. There was no access at all to documentation held in the state
archives and other institutions....

Prologue: Prague and Jerusalem: Spiritual Ties between
Czechs and Jews

It is the ancient Jewish quarter in the heart of the city of Prague that
most authentically bears witness to the checkered history of the centuries-old
Czech-Jewish coexistence.1 The echoes of bygone times still reverberate in
Josefov, the former Josefstadt, known also as the first district...

1. The Historical Setting

Throughout the centuries early Jewish settlement in the Bohemian
Crownlands has intrigued many a scholar trying to determine the precise date of
its beginning. The crux of the ongoing discussion appears to be the presence of
Jews in the city of Prague.1Legend has it that ‘‘they had dwelt unmolested in that
city from time immemorial...

2. Years of Challenge and Growth: The Jewish Minority in Czechoslovakia
(1918–38)

A national state or a state of nations? This question touches the core
and the essence of the First Republic and its fate and as such lends itself to
various interpretations. The Czechs constituted but half the population of the
new state; however, together with the Slovaks...

3. The Aftermath of Munich: The Crisis of the Intellectuals

The agony of that ‘‘once admired model democracy of Central
Europe’’ in the fall of 1938 and after the Munich Diktat has been a cardinal
theme in postwar historiography.1 It has provoked widespread dispute and
controversy.2...

4. Under German Occupation (1939–45)

Ever since the late thirties Hitler’s tirades against Czechoslovakia
had continued unabated. However, unlike in many other countries, in this enclave
his threats signaling the day of reckoning were listened...

5. The Protectorate Governments and the ‘‘Final Solution’’

The role of the native, so-called quisling governments installed in
Nazi-occupied countries, either upon German demand or with their blessing, is
doubtless one of the most intriguing issues of World War II history...

6. The Czechoslovak Government-in-Exile in London: Attitudes and
Reactions to the Jewish Plight

There is consensus that during the five years of his exile it was
Benes himself who acted as the central figure and architect of his government’s
policies.1 His personal secretary in those crucial years, Edvard Táborsky, wrote
about him: ‘‘As of 1939 until in late 1944 nothing of political importance, insofar
as it depended on the Czechoslovak Government...

7. Jews in the Czech Home Resistance

From the onset of the Hitler era and especially as of the late thirties
Jewish intellectuals were deeply involved in the anti-Nazi campaign, together
with their Czech counterparts. They participated in public demonstrations,
international rallies, and discussions...

8. The ‘‘Righteous’’ and the Brave: Compassion and Solidarity with the
Persecuted

Resentment toward Nazism was naturally more pronounced in
Czechoslovakia than in other neighboring countries. Hitler’s anti-Czech tirades
and the growing antagonism among the Sudeten Germans generated widespread
apprehension and fear of Nazi expansion...

9. Gateway to Death: The Unique Character of Ghetto Terezín
(Theresienstadt)

The ghettoization of the Jews within the Protectorate of Bohemia
and Moravia was part of the global Nazi policy meant to serve several interim
aims. The hopes nurtured by the Jewish leadership that it would forestall deportation
‘‘to the East’’ were shattered early...

10. The Spiritual Legacy of the Terezín Inmates

Both revolt and spiritual resistance in the struggle against the Nazis
are indisputably topics for which the parameters have become palpable only
in the course of the past half century. In the immediate postwar period the
glorification of armed combat persisted...

Epilogue: Between 1945 and the Velvet Revolution of 1989

Historians term the immediate postwar years (1945–48) the period
of ‘‘pseudo-democracy’’ to indicate that the reconstructed state was not a continuation
of the pre-Munich First Republic. In spite of certain similarities and
the fact that President Beneˇs was reinstated, from the outset both internal and
external affairs took a different turn...

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